Why Emphasizing Convenience Is Critical When Marketing Checking Accounts
Given the range of checking account choices that consumers have when they shop online, marketers need to understand how important convenience becomes and the critical role it plays in influencing people's decisions.
According to recent studies by Novantas, 70% of consumers will shop online for a deposit product before opening an account. This shift online and adoption of digital banking channels has shifted consumers’ definition of banking convenience away from branches. Bank marketers must recognize this shift and communicate qualities of convenience that aren’t tethered to branches.
FindABetterBank is an online tool designed to help consumers find the checking account and institution that suits them best. The site provides users with personalized results based on their location, preferences and banking behaviors. Users are presented with information to make rational decisions based on costs, functional requirements and locality. By analyzing the checking accounts they selected, you can determine whether they choose the least expensive option, or from a bank or credit union with the most branch locations, or an account that met all of their functional requirements.
In 2014, 90% of the checking accounts selected on FindABetterBank met at least one of these three rational purchase drivers. But shoppers didn’t have clear-cut choices in terms of choosing a low cost checking product, or a product that met all of their functional requirements. In fact, from consumers’ perspectives, there’s little differentiation in pricing and functionality of checking products. Most shoppers were presented with several options that meet their criteria.
When consumers are presented with more than one low cost checking account or several options that met all of their functional requirements, what did they choose? They go for the one they perceive to be the most convenient for them.
